I'm disgusted by your shocking plan to slaughter more than 5,000 of the roughly 6,000 brumby horses living in and around Australia’s Snowy Mountains region!

The brumby is an iconic breed of horse that is said to have descended from mares and stallions brought to Australia by British settlers in the 19th century.

According to the controversial plan, the brumbies are to be reduced by a whopping 90 percent, effectively driving them to the brink of extinction.

Within 10 years, about 3,000 horses would be slaughtered.After 20 years, there would be only 600 left.

Ground shootings would be the primary method of eliminating the unwanted horses.

The rationale behind the proposed slaughter is that the brumbies are overpopulated and pose a threat to the ecosystem.Authorities argue that relocating the horses is impractical.Your rationale itself is flawed. You justify this slaughter on the basis of an alleged increase in numbers – but you admit they have no real idea what these numbers are.

“When you look at the plan the estimates of the numbers of brumbies vary between 3600 and 9000,” said Snowy Mountains Bush Users Group president Peter Cochran. “They’ve given themselves a 60 per cent margin of error.”He says that’s one of a number of flaws in the draft plan is that the forecast growth in brumby numbers is deeply flawed.“It’s based on ridiculous information including that female horses can foal at the age of one to two years, which is ridiculous when the gestation period for a horse is 11 months,” says Cochran.A population of 4000 brumbies was reasonable and sustainable, and united advocate groups will continue their calls

There is an ecological principal which this kind of slaughter invariably ignores.Once a species is naturalised, found a niche in the ecosystem, it is impossible to remove it in large numbers without doing harm to that ecosystem, sometimes more harm than good.In a rapidly changing environment, as Australia has been for the last 200 years, the harm of removing brumbies (or any other naturalised animal) is very likely to exceed the good.I can’t tell what ecological harm killing the brumbies will cause – because nobody is bothering to consider or study that aspect.

And to conduct any kind of animal massacre when you don’t have a clue about the ecological consequences is a crime against not just the animals but the whole planet.And all this unknown and unmonitored damage to other species of animal is on top of the whole huge overarching cruelty to the horses themselves.

These wild horses are now an essential part of the ecosystem of the high country, they are not predators and have little to no negative environmental impacts.

They also have become a massive tourist attraction for those from the city .

As you know, there are humane alternatives to slaughtering these horses. They can, for instance, be trapped and relocated. This is not only a viable solution, but a cruelty-free one as well.

That people would choose to kill them instead defies belief.Please choose kindness over cruelty and reject the proposed cull of brumbies.The Video link is sad but the reality of the future that awaits your National Iconshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kFNTYuLjKA